So Apple have released some BlueTooth tags. As per their standard operating procedure, the rest of us have been using them for years, but now Apple has "invented" them they are suddenly interesting. Here's my review from 5 years ago of the Chipolo BlueTooth tag. Amusingly, Apple have decided to go with a user-replaceable battery - unlike many of their other devices. I wonder why they didn't go for wireless charging - like the TinTag had a few years ago? Anyway, the Apple involvement adds…
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A couple of months ago I was giving a talk in Romania - the organisers had set up a technology expo showing off some great local start-ups. One which caught my eye was TinTag. Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentTintag is pretty clever. BLE beacon but has built in Qi recharging. Very useful. thetintag.com#DevTalks pic.x.com/sjizdew274❤️ 3💬 2🔁 010:29 - Wed 11 May 2016 I've previously reviewed the Chipolo - which is a similar beacon/tracker. So I thought I'd give this one a go. At the airport…
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This is a quick unboxing / set-up / review of the Chipolo. This was a nifty piece of schwag from the Twitter Developer Relations team, to whom I'm grateful. The Chipolo is a multi-purpose Bluetooth Low Energy tag. It's like a high-tech version of one of those things which you attach to your keyring which will beep when whistled at. As the box says, it will work up to 60 meters away. It'll beep when you lose it, and it can make your phone beep if someone moves it out of range - handy if…
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As regular readers know, I've turned a BLE Beacon into a wireless business card. Physical Web used the Bluetooth beacon standard to continually broadcast not an ID number, but a URL. If you're in my proximity, you can grab my contact details. The one problem with the beacon I have is that it has an exposed button. Every time it got bumped in my pocket, the token would emit a couple of shrill beeps and set itself into config mode. After a couple of months, the CR2032 battery died. …
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It's always interesting to read over older Sci-Fi books and see what they got right about their future. I was re-reading Cory Doctorow's excellent "Makers" recently, when I came across this passage: Now the place was *spotless* -- and what's more, it was *minimalist*. The floor was not only clean, it was visible. Lining the walls were translucent white plastic tubs stacked to the ceiling. "You like it?" "It's amazing," she said. "Like Ikea meets *Barbarella*. What happened here?" Tjan did…
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Four years ago, I wrote an article for Moo.com about using QR Codes on business cards. At the time, it was the easiest way to get VCARD information from a physical card and onto a phone. I notice that Moo are now selling NFC enabled business cards. As regular readers know, I'm not a great fan of NFC - mostly because it's so expensive. The NFC cards are £1.20 each - the regular cards cost just 26p each! What if we change the idea of what a business card is? Why do I need to hand over a …
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This is a necropost - resurrected from the now defunct blog of a previous employer. Sadly, most of the photos have fallen down the memory hole. So use your imagination. Energy efficiency is the next battleground for electronics. As the price of electricity soars, people will become less and less enamoured with charging their devices every single day. Even if cold-fusion brings us unlimited free energy - plugging your gadgets into a wall just seems so primitive! That's where BlueTooth Low…
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